Machu Picchu - the lost city of the Incas

The fog and clouds are lifting as we get the first glimpse of Machu Picchu.

Part of the city.

Paula Landoll-Smith, Marysville, and I at the start of the ruins.

Al and John walking the paths around Machu Picchu.

Part of the ruins. Only 40 percent has been restored.

Large drop-offs surround the city, which overlooks a river.

Our group heads down one of the narrow paths.

Shirley and Ron Suppes, Dighton, and Debra Bolton, Garden City, listen as our guide, Wilbert Ramos, tells us about how the Incas used these water pools lined in silver to study the stars.

Work continues to keep the site repaired.

The only way to Aquas Calientes is by train or by foot, the small village that sits at the foot of the lost city of the Incas.

As the sun breaks, so do the people from their hostels and hotels, beginning the journey up the winding mountain road. It’s foggy – almost misty-like along the narrow path that leads up the “old mountain.”

But by mid morning, the clouds roll away and a mystical city appears, revealing itself to the hundreds that flock to get a glimpse on this March day.

Here, amid the tropical mountain forest, I get my first view of the ancient city roughly 600 years old -- Machu Picchu -- with its ramps and walls, its agricultural rock terraces and its family huts and royal presence – an opportunity of a lifetime.

It’s nearing the last day of my journey to Peru, and my Kansas Agriculture and Rural Leadership class is up at dawn to see the remains. Half our group is lead by Wilbert Ramos, a local of Incan decent himself who knows the history surrounding the ancient city of his ancestors.

He guides us on our morning journey across the historical site, built on a hilltop with large drop offs to the Urubamba River valley below. It felt as if we were close to heaven as we walked the Inca paths – a steal-your-breathe-away experience I can now mark off the bucket list.

After all, this place in the clouds is an engineering marvel. Construction started sometime it the late 1300s and ended around 1460 – the end result a royal governmental estate or administration center that housed about 700 people. Wilbert notes that about 200,000 Incas worked on the construction for decades – almost like ants as they funneled precisely cut stones for their structures.

Inca engineers and architects designed the 13 square kilometers of rock structures, even building models, he said. The city had homes, factories, places to keep food cool and a funeral-type hut to mourn the dead. They built stone terraces up the mountains to cultivate crops – something still seen on many Peruvian peaks today.

Machu Picchu was a place of religious ceremonies honoring the sun and Pachamama – or Mother Earth. It guarded at least a dozen different access points and supplied the royal family, who lived in Cusco, with food and coca leaves.

But within a 100 years after it was built, the Incas fled Machu Picchu as the Spanish invaded Peru about 1532, Wilbert said. The Spanish began a conquest in search of the Incas gold and silver to ship back to Spain.

The Spaniards enslaved some Peruvians and killed their ruler.

Some of the Incas fled to Machu Picchu, which was abandoned at the time, hiding their treasures in mummies, Wilbert said. They blocked off all but four access points into the city, barricading themselves before eventually fleeing the city, burying their treasures along their route.
The Incas last settled Vilcabamba before disappearing into Peru's jungles.

Over the years, both German and French explored this area, but never found Machu Picchu, the city remaining lost until 1911 when Yale University Professor Hiram Bingham discovered the remains, which were overgrown in trees.

Bingham, in the country originally to research military campaigns, was traveling through the Sacred Valley of the Incas along the Urubamba River when he met a farmer who told me about some ruins on the “old mountain,” and Bingham paid him one coin for his troubles. When he reached the area, he found two families farming the steep sides of the mountain. But it was an 8-year-old child named Pablito of one of the families who led the explorers to the archeological remains.

Bingham returned a year later with a research team and began cleaning up the overgrown site. He eventually found a little of the gold and silver, along with 40,000 artifacts that the Peruvian government allowed him to take back to the United States to study, Wilbert said.

Only about a thousand have been returned, most of which are on display in a museum in Cusco, Wilbert said.

This is just a bit of the rich history of the area and there’s still debate on the history of the site, however. Inca oral history and Spanish archives differ about some of the events. Meanwhile, Wilbert said, only 40 percent of the site is restored and archeologists are finding more artifacts, including another mummy a few weeks ago.

It is now an Unesco world heritage site, one of 962 sites protected by the United Nations group. The organization prohibits more restoration of the ruins.

Today, it is one of the seven wonders of the “new world” – and a famous attraction. It draws more than a million tourists a year, according to the Peruvian Times. That number continues to grow.

The more adventurous types don a backpack trekking four days along the legendary Inca Trail, one of the old access roads into Machu Picchu. We, however, take the easy route, a scenic and relaxing two-hour train ride along the Urubamba River, from the small town of Ollantavia to Aquas Calientes. We stay overnight in one of the hostels then venture upward in one of the buses that travels the zig-zagging roads back and fourth from the site daily.

We took a short hike on one of the cobblestone trails, which led to a ledge that overlooks the city. As the misty clouds parted, the city appeared – leaving us all speechless at its presence, followed by the clicking of our cameras.

As I walked among the ruins, exploring roofless houses, ancient water systems and painstakingly fitted walls, I felt inspiration and wonder. I felt thankful for what I have. And I felt thankful I was able to make this special journey here that many can only dream of doing.

There could be no more fitting ending to such a wonderful trip.